87 
taking, and at last offered the credit of the Institution by au- 
thorizing the purchase of an equatorial telescope of 64 inches 
aperture, provided it could be obtained at a stated price, 
with interest, on a credit of three years. 
Let me continue in Gilliss’s own words, —“ No importer 
to whom application was made was willing to order one 
from Germany on such terms. Messrs. Merz, the succes- 
, sors to Fraunhofer, at first declined selling without the 
_ ¢ash ; indeed their ordinary custom is to demand one half 
the price in advance; and the only maker in the United. 
States likely to execute properly the mechanical portions of 
so large an instrument refused to accept the offer. Just as 
Thad made arrangements to borrow on my own account the 
sum charged by Messrs. Merz, and import an equatorial 
from them, Professor Henry authorized me to increase the 
offer to Mr. Young, of Philadelphia, and eventually a contract 
was concluded with him, on behalf of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, the right being reserved to me to procure the object- 
lass and micrometer from such artists as might be pre- 
ferred. 
“ About this time notice was published by Mr. Rutherfurd, 
in Silliman’s Journal, of the performance of an object-glass 
made from imported materials by Mr. Henry Fitz, an opti- 
Cian at New York. Learning that several other lenses had 
SE aro on ee eee 
Walker. To be brief, the examination and conference re- 
sulted in an order to Fitz to grind a lens from Guinand’s 
glass, to be of the same diameter (six French inches) as that 
of the telescope at the High School Observatory in Philadel- 
Phia, and to forward it to Professor Kendall. If he and other 
Competent judges should pronounce it as good, im every re- 
pect, as. the High School lens, it would be purchased at the 
